KVCD: trouble getting the desired output from the script?
 

Hi

I'm having trouble getting the desired output from the script below. My source is a 1.4Gb Xvid AVI. The quality is very good. It's approx 100 min long and should fit nicely on one disc as a skvcd.
I have 2 problems...firstly, blocks appear on solid color surfaces, such as walls, which don't appear in the source. Secondly, peoples faces appear blotchy at times. My DVD player does a valiant effort to hide these flaws, but not good enough.
I've tried using several levels of blockbusting, from none at all to using 2 blockbuster lines in my script. I'm convinced the this is not my problem.
I've tried optimal script #4, but the problem persists.
Progs...AVISynth V2.5.4, TMPGEnc V2.521.58.169 with KVCDx3-MPEG-2 template, Xvid 1.0 RC4.
Here's my script. HELP!...and thanks.

AviSource("D:\Avi\Movie.avi",false)
BlindPP(cpu=4)
Limiter()
Blockbuster(method="noise",detail_min=1,detail_max =3,variance=0.1,seed=1)
Convolution3D(1, 6, 12, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)
GripCrop(480, 576, overscan=2, source_anamorphic=false)
GripSize(resizer="BicubicResize")
Undot()
Deen()
#asharp(1, 4)
#Fadeout(100)
TemporalCleaner()
STMedianFilter(3, 3, 1, 1)
MergeChroma(blur(1.5))
MergeLuma(blur(0.1))
#Blockbuster(method="noise",detail_min=1,detail_ma x=6,variance=0.2,seed=5623)
DCTFilter(1,1,1,1,1,1,0.5,0)
Limiter()
GripBorders()

You did tweak the optimal script to a mega double triple filtering one ;-)

Over filtering also makes surfaces very uneasy to handle by the encoder.

If you got a mega good quality mpeg4 as its the case now, you dont have to do so much filtering.

Just try to use the MA script and do add before!! the GripBorders() Line a:

Blockbuster(method="noise",detail_min=1,detail_max =6,variance=0.2,seed=5623)

That will be enough!

Also which settings do you made in TmpgEnc??

I will try your suggestion.

As far as TMPGEnc is concerned, My source is PAL so I load the KVCDx3-MPEG2 PAL template and make no changes. Min/Max(300/2500) bitrate are the default settings. I make sure Motion search precision is High Quality(slow) and Video arrange is Full Screen(keep aspect ratio). In vfapi, only AviSynth plugin is ticked.

Is there something else you wanted to know?

Thanks

?? You mean shurely "Environmental settings".
Yep, set avs reader as highest priority as it avoids reading avs input via directshow! :wink:

Start encoding and see .... :wink:

Oops! Yeah, that is what I mean.

I'll let you know the result of the encode.

BTW. Does it matter what version of Readavs.dll is intalled? Mine is Ver 0.1. It is dated May 18, 2000.

Thanks.

I finished the encode and watched it on my DVD player. It's better than the script I posted.
I started out with a combination of the #4 AVI script and the MA script with similar results to your suggestion. You can see from the script I posted, in my dissatisfaction, I tried to fix things with every filter available.
There still remains some blockiness. As I said, solid colored areas are the problem. To be more specific, it's not bright solids like pale yellow or sky blue, and it's not dark solids that are the problem. Blocking occurs with solid colors in the medium range...brown, grey. The same medium colors in a pattern are no problem.
Am I expecting too much? Do you have a further suggestion?

Thanks

You know what? I ran the encode without the blockbuster line, meaning I used the MA script verbatim. The result was great. I ran it on another AVI and again the result was super.
Maybe I have my history wrong and I never tried the MA script without any mods. Why do you always have to learn the hard way.
Anyway, thanks for steering me back to a clean MA script.

BTW> When I ran the MA script with blockbuster, I got more blocking than with the MA script alone. Is that normal?

Thats life! :D

It depends how do you set up Blockbuster .... its very useful in cases of underwater movies at low bitrates

:)

I take back a bit of what I said. My output mpeg using the MA script alone looked great on my computer, but not so great on the TV.

I put the blockbuster line back in as follows...

Blockbuster(method="noise",detail_min=1,detail_max =8,variance=0.3,seed=5623)

This has worked well on 2 other encodes.

Again...Thanks Incredible.

EDIT: Something I just read...Kwag says blockbuster noise is useless above 352x480. He suggests increasing luma blur. Can I get a comment on what Kwag says?...
http://www.kvcd.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4805

I took another of Kwag's suggestions and removed asharp from the MA script. The result was an improvement, especially in low lit scenes.

:?: :arrow: 8O

Normally if something looks great on PC it would be looking that good on TV too as a TV wont reproduce the mpeg and its artefacts (if they do exist) not that deteailed as you can recognise them on PC.

Hi guys,
That was my reaction too Inc.
It's strange how on the PC it looks nice and how on the TV it looks not so nice as It should be quite the oposite.
Can you double check that Jim?
Cheers

I guess what I mean to say is that some of the sharpness seems lost when viewed on the DVD player. Maybe it's just the difference between a 15" LCD monitor and a 27" Tube TV. Yes, blocks and artifacts are less apparent on the tv, but the picture seems more hazy on the tv.
I shouldn't make a big deal out of it.